Sword Art Online is a landmark franchise that spawned an entire genre of anime, but it was actually predicted by Yu-Gi-Oh! on two separate occasions. Of course Yu-Gi-Oh! isn’t the only anime to have played with its concepts beforehand. However, it is shocking that the series would have predicted it in this way given the two shows are in entirely different genres.
Sword Art Online is a series following Kirito, a gamer who gets trapped in a virtual reality game and must battle his way through in order to escape. As the series progresses, he plays other virtual reality games as well, and in each one manages to master the game he plays and complete whatever goal is set up for him. This premise inspired many other shows to copy this idea, with a myriad of other similar series proliferating in the years since Sword Art Online premiered. However, before that series became so popular, Yu-Gi-Oh! actually featured the idea of traveling into a virtual world as well.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Featured Virtual Reality Arcs Long Before Sword Art Online
Between the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City arcs, there was a strange storyline that featured Yugi and his friends entering a virtual reality game to rescue Kaiba, who had been trapped within it. Later right before the finals of the Battle City tournament, Yugi and his friends were again trapped in a Virtual Reality game, this time by Kaiba’s digitized stepbrother. This arc also let Kaiba overcome his trauma in a brilliant way. Both of these arcs of course had some major differences with Sword Art Online as the nature of the games was very different and Yu-Gi-Oh! didn’t present these storylines as a power fantasy. But there are some major similarities as well.
The most obvious similarity is that both stories feature the protagonists trapped in a virtual reality video game. However, there are also more subtle similarities such as Yugi and Kirito both being preternaturally good at the games they are a part of (which in Yugi’s case is due to the games being tied to Duel Monsters). In addition, the first virtual reality arc features different stages the characters must clear, much like the stages in the original Sword Art Online game. In addition, both Sword Art Online‘s first game and the first virtual world in Yu-Gi-Oh! have fantasy settings even if the worlds themselves aren’t exactly the same.
Despite Similarities, Sword Art Online Isn’t a Yu-Gi-Oh! Rip-Off
All this being said, this doesn’t make Sword Art Online a rip-off of Yu-Gi-Oh! by any means. The later anime took the premise in a very different direction than its predecessor did and was also extremely different in themes and tone. However, it does show that many modern ideas can have their roots in the most unexpected places, given as a whole Sword Art Online and Yu-Gi-Oh! are quite different from each other.
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Yu-Gi-Oh
- Summary:
- Yu-Gi-Oh! is a multimedia franchise that started with a manga series serialized between 1996 to 2004. It was written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. The popularity of the series led it to become a franchise that has spawned into several anime adaptations, movies, novels, trading card games, video games and retail items such as shirts.The main protagonist of the series is a boy named Yugi Mutou who loves games but was often bullied because of his physical build. He successfully solves the Millenium Puzzle, which unlocks a spirit that takes over his body whenever Yugi and the people he cares about are threatened. The spirit who takes over his body then challenges the dark spirits to card game duels.Yugi and friends find out that the spirit is an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who lost all memory of his past life. They go through an adventure filled with Duel Monster battles as Yugi and his friends decide to help the Pharaoh remember who he is.Takahashi originally wanted to create horror manga series because he wanted to produce a battle story that does not involve physical encounters. He ended up with a story that still revolves around battles but done through trading card games.A spin-off manga series titled Yu-Gi-Oh! R was published between 2004 and 2007 with Akira Ito as the Illustrator with Takahashi working closely with him. There are two anime adaptations of the series to date titled Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters respectively. The former first aired in 1998 with 27 episodes and the latter in 2000 with 224 episodes. A 12-episode miniseries spinoff titled Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters also aired between September and November 2006.A novel adaptation written by Katsuhiko Chiba was published in September 1999. Other book adaptations also followed along with four movies, various video games and card games. The franchise also includes items such as clothes, bags, school supplies, caps, eating utensils and the likes.
